They were the bus tours for bookish anoraks once seen as the Star Trek conventions of Welsh literature.

But now Literature Wales’ tourism programme has blossomed from obscure beginnings for diehard fans to attract a growing audience for its inventive summer-long season of events, boasting some of the biggest names in Welsh writing.

The events take tourists to the spots associated with Wales’ greatest literary figures and the works they penned.

The nation’s best-known living poet Dannie Abse will this year read pieces from his new book Speak, Old Parrot at Glamorgan Coast Heritage Centre after tourists visit his home in Ogmore.

Literature Wales project manager Dr Bronwen Price said when the events started in 2008 they attracted mainly mature students on scholarly explorations of Wales’ literary past.

But now the three coach loads of visitors who journeyed around Wales five years ago have turned into 18 separate events celebrating Welsh literature.

Dr Price said: “For the first three years they were very much roll-on roll-off coach tours with a scholarly day-class outing type feel.

“We realised that while we were running three or four a year they could appeal to a much broader audience.”

Part of the effort to broaden the appeal has seen charity Literature Wales tie in activities with the trips to Wales’ writing hotspots.

This year those enjoying the Dylan Thomas’ tour will row across the Taf estuary as the writer did from Laugharne to Llansteffan to visit friends and pubs.

Dr Price said the trips now attract a much broader range of visitors than the over-50s lifelong learning students that dominated when they started.

In May Mr Abse, 89, will share his love of the Glamorgan coastline with a group of tourists after they cross the River Ogmore on horseback.

The poet said he’s tied to the area by a powerful mix of fond, childhood reminiscences and crippling loss.

His parents Kate and Rudy Abse and aunts and uncles nicknamed the area Abse-on-Sea because their extended family would meet there for annual get-togethers.

He said: “At one time the whole family – whether they were from Ammanford, Swansea, Cardiff or Bridgend – used to descend on Ogmore in the summer.”

But in June 2005 his wife Joan died following a car crash when they were journeying back from Porthcawl Pavilion to Bridgend after Mr Abse had given a reading.

Mr Abse who, although he still has the house he shared with his wife in Ogmore, now lives in London, added: “The experiences there have been sometimes of celebration and joy and sometimes because of what happened a bit of a lament.”

His wife’s ashes are buried in the garden of his house in Ogmore.

The tours take in all the Welsh literary heavyweights, including the poet RS Thomas, medieval bard Dafydd ap Gwilym and novelists Rachel Tresize, Niall Griffiths and Joe Dunthorne.

As well as Mr Abse, Mr Dunthorne and Mr Griffiths are involved in the Literature Wales events this summer.

Among other trips archaeologist and former punk rocker Rhys Mwyn will take tourists around five of Anglesey’s prehistoric monuments.

There they will explore inscriptions left on ancient burial chambers.

Mr Mwyn, 50, who managed Welsh rock act the Super Furry Animals in their early days as well as working alongside former members of Catatonia, said: “At Barclodiad [a burial chamber on Anglesey] there are Neolithic carvings. It’s not literature, but they’ve got Neolithic arts.”

Mr Mwyn said the links between his former life as a bassist with Welsh language punk rock act Anhrefn (disorder) and his role now as a tour guide at archaeological sites are stronger than at first appear.

He said: “The common ground is we took Welsh language music all over Europe and the States. That was always the idea to take Welsh language and culture across frontiers.

“And to me it’s always been the same thing – basically promoting Welsh culture and it doesn’t make much difference if it’s Welsh music or Welsh archaeology. It’s all part of that great picture.”

The Literature Wales tourism events run from April to October 2013 with tickets priced between £7 and £20.